Underdog Blog – Fairfax Criminal Defense Lawyer | Virginia DUI Attorney

Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.)  A prison inmate’s case does not become quiet merely because of a conviction and a lost appeal. Many inmates next seek post conviction relief, whether the term of art for such relief applications is habeas corpus, coram nobis, or any...

Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.)  Praised be Virginia’s intermediate appellate court for generally finding that a detention takes place once a police officer tells a person that s/he is having a drug dog come to search the suspect’s vehicle. In Middlebrooks v. Virginia, ___...

The National Criminal Defense College and Trial Lawyers College focus on persuasion through storytelling. What to do, though, when a judge tries to stop the lawyer from first-person storytelling (“I was sitting there minding my own business, when he rushed at me with a meat...

What keeps me practicing law, and enjoying it? Law school was not sufficient to keep me practicing law and enjoying it, with the exception that I benefited tremendously spiritually, intellectually, and growth-wise from the immigration law clinic, through which I first-chaired the first two trials of...

Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.)  More commonly when I was a public defender lawyer, from time to time I would have clients who were at great risk of being ordered by the judge for a psychological evaluation — e.g., for being seriously delusional, and, therefore,...

Image from Virginia Forestry Dept’s website. In Virginia and Washington, D.C., the law says that drivers in those states impliedly consent to have their blood alcohol levels tested if the police have sufficient grounds for seeking such tests. In that regard, here are important relevant Virginia...

Some people seek calm by avoiding conflict. I seek to use calmness to harmonize conflict to the advantage of me and my client. By applying the principles of t’ai chi to my practice as a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I do my best neither to chase...

Computer hard drive. (Image from Pacific Northwest Laboratory’s website). According to a posting at lawyer Allan Ellis’s website, the United States Sentencing Commission reports that 94% of federal criminal cases result in guilty pleas. This week, my client and I bucked that trend by proceeding...

Bill of Rights (From public domain.) NOTE: The following blog entry was written before the awful May 19 Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Williams (May 19, 2008). This blog entry follows up on my previous discussions of child pornography defense here and here. With the current...